Monday, January 16, 2012

Creator Roundup

This week, Dan Hipp ask's what time is it, Fabio Moon is amazing, Warren Ellis talks about the importance of the comic script, Jim Rugg get's his Street Fighter on, Eric Canate and Sean Phillips show us their processes, Becky Cloonan previews another page of Conan, Dave Johnson likes lobster, Robert Kirkman is a thief, Peter Nguyen likes the cat, Andrew Robinson gets it on like Donky Kong, Hickman talks Ultimates, Ryan Ottley joins the Academy and Phil Noto gets out the claws.

- Fabio Moon has few new pieces to show off, including this one: - Warren Ellis discusses the function of a comic script:This may seem obvious, but give me a minute. I think it’s often misunderstood.A script is a set of instructions to the artist(s), letterer, editor, colourist if applicable, and designer if applicable. This set of instructions is intended to present the mechanics of your story with the greatest possible clarity. Adhering to a precise format, as in screenwriting, is not necessary. Presenting a script whose operation is clear to everybody is the requirement.This set of instructions must surround your story to the extent that you feel necessary and comfortable. Some writers produce reams of panel description because they require fine control of the artist, letterer and colourist to meet their vision of the story. Some writers boil their description down to a telegram because they require only that the most basic requirements of the panel be met in order to achieve their goals.Both methods, however, and everything in between, are about manipulation of the artist. That sounds grim, doesn’t it?

- Jim Rugg designed a poster for the Street Fighter IV World Championships:- Eric Canete has begun posting videos of his process, including this one:

- Becky Cloonan posted yet another Conan preview page:- Dave Johnson reveals the cover of Lobster Johnson #2:- Robert Kirkman chatted with EW about Thief of Thieves:ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what else can you tell us about Thief of Thieves?

ROBERT KIRKMAN: Well, it’s a fine comic book, if I do say so myself. It’s somewhat of a crime-caper comic about a professional thief named Conrad Paulson. He is one of the greatest thieves who’s ever lived, but he’s gotten to a point in his life where he realizes that he’s chosen his professional life over his family life and greatly regrets that. He’s got an adult son who is kind of following in his footsteps but doing a horrible job, and he has an estranged wife that he is still very much in love with. Our story picks up when he is trying to turn his back on his profession and rekindle his relationship with his wife and trying to fix his son’s horrible predicament.You’ve said that the way you worked on this was inspired by your experience in the writers’ room of the Walking Dead… I almost said the Grateful Dead then, which might have been even more interesting…[Laughs] It takes just three weeks of us not doing interviews every week about the show for you to forget the name!Yep, sorry. But could you elaborate on what you meant by that?

Absolutely. I’ve been spending a lot of time in writers’ rooms since the very first season of the Walking Dead and I’ve been somewhat enchanted by the process. It’s a very cool thing to have writers working hard to improve a story together as a group. It’s not something that usually happens in comics. So I got the idea to do the series that way, to have an overall story and then get a sort of writers’ room of people together to help map out what’s going on with the characters and tighten the story up here and there. It’s kind of a cool little experiment.To clarify, this process has involved more people than just yourself and [Thief of Thieves writing collaborator] Nick Spencer?Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a few other people involved, but we haven’t announced their names must yet. But the first six issues are written by Nick, based on my initial series outline and quite a bit of conversations between the two of us. That kicks us off and then we’ll be rotating from arc-to-arc with various writers that are in the group.- Peter Nguyen posted this Catwoman:- Andrew Robinson got it on like Donky Kong for his WhatNot post this week:- Jonathan Hickman spoke with CBR about taking on The Ultimates:When he accepted the assignment to write "The Ultimates," Hickman knew he would be writing the adventures of some pretty powerful characters, so the writer wanted foes that could test the mettle of these formidable heroes. To that end, he created the Children of Tomorrow, a race of humans who, thanks to high technology, have evolved several centuries in the span of less than a year. The developer of that technology and leader of the Children is the Ultimate Universe's incarnation of Reed Richards, who recently decided that he's going to solve the world's problems regardless of who gets killed or destroyed in the process.Hickman, who writes the monthly Marvel Universe adventures of Reed Richards in "Fantastic Four" and "FF," welcomed the chance to pen his villainous, teenaged Ultimate Universe counterpart in "The Ultimates." "He kind of exists as the logical extension of, 'What if Reed made completely non-empathic decisions?' So what if they were bad for the rabble? He's a fascinating character," Hickman told CBR News. "Brian Bendis introduced the idea of a villainous Reed in his 'Ultimate Doom' trilogy, and I thought it was perfect. The first thing I said to [Brian] was, 'You're not going to kill him, right?' He told me he wasn't, and the end of 'Ultimate Doom' worked out perfectly because we were able to use it to set up our 'Ultimates' relaunch."I think Ultimate Reed is a fantastic character," Hickman continued. "The Children in general are a good Ultimatization of what was a really great Mike Carey idea, The Children of the Vault, introduced in his 'Super Novas' arc of 'X-Men.' I think he, and they, make for a different kind of villain than what we've seen, in that Reed and his followers are essentially, completely, utterly and totally correct. They do not see these as evil decisions. They just happen to be bad for the apes that are left on the planet," Hickman said with a laugh. "They're centuries more advanced than every one else. Just look how far the human race has come in the last 20 years compared to the 60 before, then to the 100 before that. And, in parallel with that, you can see that we're rapidly evolving culturally, as well, even though it doesn't feel like it some days. Reed and the Children represent that to a ridiculous degree, and it's just a whole lot of fun."- Ryan Ottley painted the White Violin for Sindiecate:- Phil Noto has heaps of great new stuff this week, including these beauties: